The invention relates to electronic taximeters, and more particularly to an electronic taximeter which meets the requirements of taxis operating as shuttles or mini-buses and sometimes carrying a single passenger but sometimes a plurality of passengers whose respective trips overlap.
It has been statistically established that ordinary taxis predominantly carry only a single passenger at any one time. However, from the view point of the taxi owner, and also to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution, it is very desirable, especially in large cities, to change over from the old single-passenger taxi system to systems in which taxis serve as shuttles or mini-buses, or in which in general the taxis to the extent possible carry concurrently a plurality of passengers, often on respective trips which overlap. In general, it would be desirable to utilize to the extent possible the entire seating capacity of the taxi passenger compartment, by carrying as many passengers as possible, even to different destinations, so long as the different destinations are not too far from each other.
Japanese patent publication No. 32 997-70 discloses a taximeter arrangement for use in taxis operating on the shuttle or mini-bus basis. The disclosed arrangement consists essentially of two fare calculators and fare indicators. The first fare calculator and the first fare indicator are employed when only a single passenger rides the taxi. When two passengers share the taxi, the second fare calculator and the second fare indicator are employed. Selector switches are provided to activate one or the other of the two devices.
This prior-art taximeter arrangement is rather complicated and, more importantly, does not individually indicate the computed fare for each passenger when the trips of the respective passengers overlap. In addition, the known prior-art arrangement is inherently space-consuming. This is a very significant disadvantage, because the dashboard space of a taxi is generally quite limited, especially in the case of radio-dispatched taxis where the radio equipment itself consumes a great deal of the dashboard space.